The youth justice system.

The first 200 words of this essay...

The youth justice system is fraught with inequities. One sees a disparity in the levels of quality defense and sentences given to the young offenders. In the same manner, the disparity between the treatment of youth with private lawyers and those with Legal Aid (rich and poor; minority and Caucasian) is evident. The barely adequate youth criminal justice system has failed to benefit the young people involved.

A visit to youth court confirmed several pre-conceived ideas; poverty and crime are closely linked, lawyers are rarely affordable leading to Legal Aid's mediocre efficiency and suspect efficacy. There is a correlation between ethnicity and number of arrests within a community; no longer recorded is the offender's race when arrested, earlier statistics identify 75% of Winnipeg Youth Detention as Aboriginal disproportionate to the 10% of Manitoba's population that are Aboriginal. These disaffected youth are being stereotyped by the authorities and through their institutionalization, they are inadvertently fulfilling those stereotypes.

Parents, being unable to control their children, are turning to the courts to raise and discipline them. A 15 year old boy, shackled and in blue sweats (youth court's take on blue coveralls), was charged with mischief including